The exhibition Art, Genius & Madness, the Artists Day and Night, which opened on the 31 st January in the Complesso Museale Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, sets out to explore the complex relationship between lunacy and artistic inspiration and features some 400 works by artists famed not only for their art, but also for their eccentricity.

Many of the paintings and sculptures on show come from leading European museums and galleries, such as the Museè D'Orsay, the Museè National d'Art Moderne and the Georges Pompidour Centre in Paris, the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, the Museè de Beaux-Arts, Lille, the Sammlung Prinzhorn of Heidelberg and the Kirchner Museum in Davos and the Collection de lArt Brut, Lucerne, Switzerland, in addition to works from numerous Italian museums, including the Modern Art Gallery, Rome, the Palazzo Pitti Modern Art Gallery and the Marino Marini Museum, Florence, the Pinacoteca of Brera and the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milan and the Cà Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice.

The mad artists on show include Van Gogh, Antonio Ligabuàe, Hieronymus Bosch, Max Ernst, Renato Guttuso, George Grosz and Franz Messerschmidt.

For a full immersion experience in the world of mental instability, visitors to the exhibition can also embark on an hour-long tour of the historic ex-psychiatric hospital of San Niccolò (prior booking required)

Art, Genius & Madness, the Artists Day and Night is running till the 25 th May 2009 every day between 10.30-19.30.

For information: www.artegeniofollia.it